


if the clouds get heavy and start to fall

by elijay



Series: because there really isn't enough of Neal Caffrey being one of the Robins in our lives [5]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, White Collar (TV 2009)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Dick Grayson is Neal Caffrey, Dick Grayson is a Talon, Feels, Former Talon Dick Grayson, Gen, Graphic Description, Hurt Dick Grayson, Hurt Neal Caffrey, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Reveal, Neal Caffrey Needs a Hug, Neal Caffrey is Dick Grayson, Not Really Character Death, Reveal, Sort Of, and general injury, he's not dead and doesn't die it's all okay, i suppose - it's not really "happy" but it's not sad, powers reveal, warning for graphic descriptions of gore, when his bones aren't sticking out of his skin anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 20:08:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29971653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elijay/pseuds/elijay
Summary: “Neal?” Peter calls, overtaking Diana in the lead. “Where are you?”“On your left,” he replies, “don’t freak out.”Peter looks to his left, and sure enough, Neal’s there, sitting against the wall. Only, Peter’s nightmare has come true.---Neal Caffrey is actually Dick Grayson.
Relationships: Diana Berrigan & Neal Caffrey, Neal Caffrey & Clinton Jones, Peter Burke & Dick Grayson, Peter Burke & Neal Caffrey
Series: because there really isn't enough of Neal Caffrey being one of the Robins in our lives [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1785382
Comments: 24
Kudos: 193





	if the clouds get heavy and start to fall

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [couldn't decide if i should name this after "bring me back to life" by evanescence or "back to life" by rascal flatts. i know it's the exact same phrase but i know the difference in my heart.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29745999) by [impravidus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/impravidus/pseuds/impravidus). 
  * Inspired by [You Can’t Just “Walk Off” a Collapsed Lung, Neal!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29846682) by [BabyGenius](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BabyGenius/pseuds/BabyGenius). 



> i've hopped on that ex-Talon!Dick is Neal train finally!
> 
> warning: graphic gore and injury description ahead.

Neal teeters on the ledge, both feet on it but only just, his balance tipping him backwards. It’s a high-rise building, the few cars out at this time of day mere specks on the roads below, the sun setting. His blue eyes meet Peter’s, surprisingly calm and steady for someone who’d almost just been forced to jump at gunpoint. “Neal!” Peter shouts, desperate, arm reaching for Neal’s jacket, catching Jones and Diana’s attention from where they’re cuffing the crook and wrestling the gun away from him.

Neal succumbs to gravity and falls, arms reaching back out to Peter fruitlessly.

“No!” Peter yells, voice hoarse. He rushes to the edge, leaning over. He can see Neal falling, and falling, and falling, and falling, until- he hits the ground with an awful sound that Peter can’t hear - it’s too far down - but knows the sound he would hear if he could, and his imagination makes him listen.

It’s only when Diana pulls him away from the edge does he realise he was at risk of falling over it himself.

He’s numb. “Neal…”

“Boss-” Diana says, sounding shaken herself. “Boss, we’ve gotta get down there.”

All three of them know there’s no chance Neal lived, he knows that’s true, but- they have to go down there.

They pass the crook off to an extra and rush to the elevator doors. The elevator seems to take an anxious eternity to arrive, and when it finally does, it seems to take an even longer one to get to the ground floor.

Peter leads the dash out to where Neal fell, followed by Diana and Jones not far behind him.

He prepares himself to see Neal sprawled on the hard ground, bones in twisted positions, eyes glaring open harshly in still, lifeless death, a pool of blood seeping out from underneath him. He feels the vile bile rise in this throat at the image. 

After yet another eternity, they get to the spot where he knows Neal must’ve landed, but… there’s nothing but a puddle of warm, red liquid. No broken bones, no distorted limbs, no sightless blue gaze, no Neal.

“Wh- What…?” Jones mutters, kneeling down to touch the blood with a shaky hand.

“Where did he go?” Diana murmurs.

Peter feels paralyzed. Where did Neal go? This wasn’t… was he still alive? No, he couldn’t be - Peter saw him land, imagined the thud-crunch of the body hitting the concrete…

“Pst,” a low voice hisses from the shadows of the alley off to their side. They all spin around, hands tightening around their holstered guns. “Woah, now, so eager to shoot me just after I died?” the voice goes, now familiar.

“ _Neal_?” Peter asks the shadows, incredulous and disbelieving, a sense of relief rushing through his veins. “Oh, thank god, Neal-” 

“Hey, so, you mind not freaking out?” Neal interrupts, voice weak.

At the same time, Diana nudges him and points to the ground leading to the alleyway, and Peter’s blood goes cold as he sees the thick trail of red blood he somehow missed the first time, when he was too overcome by Neal’s apparent death to notice.

“Neal?” Diana calls into the shadows as he gathers himself, her voice calmer than his ever could be in this situation they’ve found themselves in. “Mind telling us what we would be freaked out about?”

“Uh-” Neal starts, then coughs, a wet, hacking thing, and then coughs again, and again, and again, as Peter and Jones creep closer into the alleyway behind Diana. Everything else he says as a rasping quality to it. “Well, I did… I did fall off a-” cough, cough, “-a skyscraper.”

“But you saved yourself, right? You didn’t hit the ground! You’re Neal Caffrey, you- you always save yourself,” Peter rambles, his reassuring tone aimed at the still-concealed Neal but really for his own sake.

“Then why- why would there be a… puddle of blood, Peter?” Neal says, his voice only slightly better than the minute before.

“Neal?” Peter calls, overtaking Diana in the lead. “Where are you?”

“On your left,” he replies, “don’t freak out.”

Peter looks to his left, and sure enough, Neal’s there, sitting against the wall. Only, Peter’s nightmare has come true. Neal’s limbs are twisted in painful angles, entire bones and bone fragments sticking out of the skin. Blood bubbles out of his mouth, leaking onto his white shirt which was already stained by the sticky blood crusting his shirt to his partially caved in chest. A pair of ribs on his right side puncture right through the thin cloth. His skull is visibly dented, blood seeping quickly out of the gruesome wound. His right hand’s finger bones and wrist are completely wrecked, as if he’d put his hand out to stop his fall and his entire weight and the force of his collision with the concrete had torn straight through the hand.

Peter hears distantly, outside of the sound of ringing in his ears, Diana slap her hand over her mouth in horror, Jones’ retching - but he can’t look away from Neal. Neal, who’s grimacing with a hazy, tired look in his - alive, not still and glazed over and lifeless - pain-bright blue eyes.

“Hey, guys,” Neal hacks out, blood coming out alongside something thick and dark and viscous.

“Neal,” Peter says as the blood rushes back through him and sound kickstarts. “Neal!” He scrambles to him, quickly joined by both the other FBI agents. Their collective six hands flutter over Neal’s broken form, taking off jackets and pressing into bleeding wounds.

“Hey, don’t bother,” Neal tells Diana when she starts trying to rip her jacket into strips to apply pressure.

“Of course I’m going to bother, Neal! You’re- you’re going to be _fine_ , okay? We just need to… someone call 911, _now_!” she snaps.

“No!” Neal gasps out, lifting his left hand, his more intact one, to latch onto Jones’ wrist when he takes his phone out to do just that.

“Neal, we need to get you to the hospital,” Peter tells him, nodding at Jones to go ahead and call even as Neal shakes his head violently, even as Peter knows, the sinking feeling his heart telling him, that Neal will never make it, not with these injuries. It’s a miracle he survived the fall in the first place. He’d be dead of blood loss or internal damage or brain damage or shock or asphyxiation from blood in his lungs or any of the other things Peter knows has got to be killing him before any medical assistance gets to him.

Peter shakes, tears beginning to slip down his face as Jones reaches for his phone again anyway and Diana continues to apply pressure where she can.

“You’re gonna be… just fine, Neal,” Peter chokes out. “It’s okay, it’s- it’s okay.” Peter leans over to brush Neal’s blood-clumped hair out his eyes.

“No hospital,” Neal insists again, hand somehow tightening on Jones’ arm, preventing him from taking out his phone.

Jones gives Peter a shaken look in askance, and after a moment, Peter shakes his head. “Okay, Neal,” he says, tone gentle. “No hospital.”

“But, boss-!” Diana immediately protests. Peter gives her a look, and she sobs, halting her efforts.

“Okay, Neal, no hospital,” Peter repeats. “It’s okay.”

“G- Good,” Neal breathes out. “Now, don’t freak out. I’m not dying.”

“Neal…”

“No, seriously-” Neal breaks for another wet, hacking cough. “Just... give me a- a minute, o- okay? I also need to… fix myself up a little so that I… so that I heal right.”

“Neal, what- you’re… you’re _dying_ ,” Peter says, beyond reassurances for either him or his teammates or the dying man himself.

“No, Peter, I- I’m not,” Neal, despite the weak, rasping voice and the blood bubbling up his throat, sounds so confident in his words that when Peter looks up and into his eyes, he wants to believe him. The dent in his temple just beside his eyes quickly relieves him of that notion.

“I’m sorry, Neal,” Peter says. “You were right there, I should’ve caught you, I could’ve prevented this.”

“Peter, no, you don’t understand,” Neal says. “I- I’m a…” he trails off, before he takes a shallow breath that Peter gets the feeling would’ve been a deep one if he were capable. “I’m a meta,” he finishes.

Peter freezes. “What?” Hope pours into his body, and his hands come to grasp Neal’s shoulder. “Neal, please say you’re going to be okay.”

Neal laughs, and it turns into a painful cough. “Peter, I’m going to be okay,” he tells him. “I’ll be fine, I just… need to, uh, my bones, you see…”

Diana barks out a hysterical laugh, and Jones asks, “You’re not kidding, right, Caffrey? You really have some kind of... super-healing?”

“Practically immortality,” Neal admits with a grimace. Peter senses a story there. Then he jokes, “It’s not as fun as it seems.” When no one laughs, he mutters, “Okay, bad time, got it.”

“How can we help?” Peter demands, rocking back on his ankles. He wants to believe Neal’s ‘immortality’ enough that he doesn’t even let the always suspicious, investigative part of his brain go anywhere near it. He clings onto the hope with desperate, blind hope, willing to ignore all the other implications of this revelation until a later date.

Neal goes, “Um... look away so you don’t throw up on me.” He looks pointedly at Jones, who still looks nauseous. “Don’t think I didn’t see that.”

Jones laughs weakly, gaze still fixed on Neal’s form slouched against the cold, shadowed brick wall of the alleyway. Now that Peter knows - on Neal’s word, anyway, and Neal’s a conman but Neal’s also said he’s never lied to Peter and Peter doesn’t think now’s the time to stop believing him - Neal’s going to be alright, he looks a bit closer, doing his best to ignore the queasy feeling in his own stomach. Neal actually looks… a bit better. He sounds better, too.

“Sooner rather than later, preferably,” Neal says, voice strained, just as Peter spots the new skin under the blood, growing around the bones still jutting out of Neal’s limbs.

Peter spins around, unwilling to watch any longer.

When the three of them turn back around after Neal’s okay, Neal is getting up unsteadily. Peter lurches forward at the same time Jones does, and the two of them support the still-bloody mess that is Neal back to the car they arrived in, coincidentally parked on the street right where Neal fell.

Peter avoids looking at the now-cooling patch of red on the sidewalk as they pass.

They ease Neal into the pavement-side of the car’s backseat gently, and blood immediately ruins the fake leather. Diana darts around to the driver’s, while Jones takes the passenger’s and Peter slips in next to Neal on the street-side.

“My place,” Neal rasps, and then coughs again. In sync, they all give him a concerned look, but he waves it off with a wave of his tattered hand and a, “Internal wounds always take the longest.”

Peter swallows, and then nods. “Okay. Diana, to Neal’s. We can put off sending a report in for an hour maybe.”

Diana’s hands are steady on the wheel, but she replies thinly, “Got it, boss,” with a wobble in her voice.

Peter pulls Neal into a gentle half-hug. “Neal, you better have a hell of a story to tell us when you’re better.”

**Author's Note:**

> now think of Dick's falling-related trauma. you know what i'm talking about.
> 
> this one i wrote about... an hour or two ago. i briefly proofed it, and someone did read it over for me - thanks again - but it might be a bit raw. considering the topic and the type of writing, i figured that was probably fine, but if you spot any obvious grammar/spelling mistakes i might've missed, just let me know.
> 
> i apologise for the title that means absolutely nothing. it's just a random lyric from a song i was listening to at the time and thought it sounded pretty.
> 
> \---
> 
> feel free to hop on our WC/B discord. we're pretty active and pretty friendly! click [here](https://discord.gg/SnjTSuvtds)!


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